Back to Traverse City

Carol & Roger are very happy after a beautiful day of sailing. The wind was from the west, so they sailed back south to Traverse City, where Carol wants to spend her birthday on Friday. They thought it was exciting to be moving really fast through the water.  The waters of Grand Traverse Bay are pretty protected, so you can get lots of wind (today the wind varied anywhere from 6-25 knots, but averaged about 15-20) without big waves. Even so, we “tipped” a lot (20 degrees and slightly more at times). The official sailor’s term is “heeling”, but I can’t say “heel”, since that’s what dogs do, not cats.

They were also excited to see a boat they recognized sailing north, a beautiful schooner with tanbark sails, the “Inland Seas”. It’s an educational ship that teaches people about the science of the Great Lakes.    Roger & Carol know the captain from their old church in Traverse City, so Carol called him on the radio to say hi. You can see a picture of the schooner at the top of this post. If I don’t move it down into the text, you should be able to click on it and make it bigger.

I spent most of the day below on the bed, trying to sleep, but I was bothered by the sound of the water rushing by the hull. I’m not doing as well as I was, so Carol has made an appointment for me to see one of my old vets here on Friday morning. I hope they can make me feel better. I don’t like making Carol worry.

There is a big film festival going on right now in Traverse City, so the town is crowded with tourists (more than usual). A few famous people are here for it, including Michael Moore, its founder, Phil Donahue who is presenting a film, and on Saturday, Madonna, who made a documentary about Malawi they are going to show. The other big-name attendee is Stanley Donen, the director of “Singin’ in the Rain”, which they are going to project on a huge screen in a park overlooking the bay, I think tomorrow night (there’s a free outdoor movie every night during the festival, which started yesterday and runs through the weekend). What fun!

Photo enlarging

This post is so I can try an experiment to see if I can post photos that you can enlarge by clicking on them.  I'll start with the panorama looking south from Northport (where we still are) so you can hopefully click on it and see the island on the left.

Friends Old and New

Carol & Roger have been busy since I last wrote. I've been mostly sleeping and eating, although I did help them refill the water tank under their bed before we left Traverse City (that is, I supervised).  

They thought about leaving the first day the wind was from the west (Friday), but it was too strong and gusty, so we stayed in harbor.  On Saturday the prediction was for 10-15 knots of wind from the west, which is perfect for sailing north, so we left for Sutton's Bay, a nice town about 18 nautical miles or 20 land miles north of Traverse City.  

Carol got a nice photo of one of the local schooners as we were leaving. 

 If the sailing was good, we might go on to Northport, another 13 nautical miles further north.

Once we got going, I knew the wind was strong because Carol didn't come below to check on me after the first half hour or so (she doesn't like to come below if there are many waves).  I'll let her tell you about the day on the water:

Wind and waves were more than predicted.  We sailed with a single reef and still lost a batten, which I think hit the shackle that holds our topping lift to the boom, on its way out.  (Battens are the long strips of stiffener that help to shape the sail, kind of like stays in men's old shirt collars.  The topping lift holds up the back end of the boom--a very important job!)  Fortunately, we have a backup attachment line.  After an hour of sailing we took in a second reef when wind gusts came up at 30-35 knots (35-40 mph).  By then we were feeling we'd had a workout and decided Sutton's Bay would be far enough.

Stopping in SB gave us a chance to hear our favorite jazz singer, Claudia Schmidt, who was the headline act at the Sutton's Bay JazzFest.  Also in the band was Mike Hunter, husband of the choir director at our old church in Traverse City.  In the audience we ran into that church's former organist, too, so it was like old home week!

Whenever we travel we are always on the lookout for other Nonsuches, because ours is such a distinctive rig.  Well, we found one in Sutton's Bay and met a very nice couple who helped us out immeasurably. Besides visiting each others' vessels to compare notes, they found among their spares a replacement pin for our shackle so we could fix our topping lift.  All the more welcome since we discovered that the local marine supply store we thought was here closed two years ago.

Armed with our reconditioned topping lift (but still missing a batten), we set out Sunday morning for Northport.  We could not have asked for a more perfect day for sailing.  This time the predictions were right and we enjoyed west winds between 10 and 15 knots (ideal) with some prolonged gusts around 20.  We sped along at hull speed (the fastest our boat can go, given the size and shape of the hull) most of the way, with only small waves following behind us.  Such are the joys of sailing in the protected waters of Grand Traverse Bay!

I liked our trip yesterday.  We didn't tip too much, so I just basked in the sun on the bed.  When we got here Carol and Roger saw a boat they recognized.  It belongs to a very nice couple from Minnesota.  They came on board to meet me because they like cats.  Carol and Roger seemed very happy to see them, since they haven't run into them for a couple of years.  That's one of the things they like best about cruising.  They get to meet lots of interesting people.  And the scenery is really pretty.  

Here is a picture of Northport Bay looking south.  On the left if you look really carefully (I wish I knew how to make the pictures bigger) you can just make out Gull Island and the two chimneys which are all that remain of some guy's attempt to build a house there (he was driven out by seagulls and cormorants).

Exploring

Roger has been worried about our engine. Something about the oil pressure. While he was waiting for the mechanic to arrive, I went into the engine compartment to investigate. I had fun looking around in there, but I got out of the way when the mechanic arrived. He said that the oil pressure was fine, but the part that sends the information to the gauge was not working right. So Roger and Carol decided it was safe to leave Northport and head south to Traverse City.

We were expecting the wind to be from the north, which would have been perfect, but there wasn’t any wind at all. So I had to listen to that noisy diesel engine for five hours! But sailing wouldn’t have been much fun, anyway, since it was raining most of the time. I just stayed on the bed and rested, except when Roger came down to make tuna fish sandwiches. He’s so nice, he gave me the juice to drink!

I was so surprised when we got to Traverse City. It seems familiar, somehow. Carol says I used to live here for a while. But we moved away seven years ago, when I was twelve (we moved here when I was seven, too long ago for me to remember). It’s a nice place, with tons of good restaurants. My humans went out to eat with some old friends last night, and they plan to go out again with different friends tonight. It’s a good thing I like to sleep so much or I might get lonesome. I heard them say they are like Mary Poppins; they will stay here until the wind changes. Then I guess we’ll sail somewhere new.

Our Home Away from Home

Carol forgot to let me finish what I had to say in the last entry, and she embarrassed me by writing about my arthritis. I can get around just fine, only sometimes it’s to my advantage to let my humans think I can’t. Yesterday I was curious about all the new smells. Our house seemed the same on the inside, but I knew we were someplace different. Charlevoix was full of big powerboats with loud humans aboard; Northport is much quieter, with big trees and lots of pretty sailboats.

I thought I should describe where we live. “Cattitude” is different from a lot of sailboats.  It has what is called a “cat rig” (although I’m sure I don’t know why, and I know they didn’t consult with any of us cats before calling it that). This means that it has only one sail attached to the mast, and the mast goes through the deck way at the front of the boat. It’s also really wide for a boat of its size (it’s 30 feet long and almost 12 feet wide), so we have lots of room to move around down below. Smaller, traditional catboats are really slow, but “Cattitude” sails really fast, even when there isn’t a lot of wind. Roger says that has to do with how it’s built below the water. Sometimes when we sail fast, the boat tips a bit. I don’t mind too much. I try to sleep through it, but occasionally I get up for a snack. As long as we aren’t tipping over too far.

Carol put my litterbox in the head (I don’t know why they call it that, either, since it doesn’t look like anyone’s head, and I don’t think you’d like to put your head in it). She says it’s the perfect litterbox for me because it’s small, like me, and it has a handle on it so it can be moved out of the way when they need to use the toilet. It’s also Barbie pink, which is okay, since I’m a girl.

The best thing about being ship’s cat is that I get to spend a lot of time with my humans. Sometimes they leave me and go into town for food or to check email, but I just sleep and eat while they’re gone. They piled up a bunch of pillows next to the bed in the forward cabin so I can get up and down from it without help (although I like it better when Carol helps me, so I’ve told her I can’t do it alone. Please don’t tell her I can, okay?).

Getting Started

My humans, Roger & Carol Faber, took me to Charlevoix, MI at the end of June to spend a week on their beautiful sailboat (beautiful because there's a picture of me on the transom!) just after it was launched.  They wanted to see if I would make a good ship's cat, since Carol didn't want to leave me at home this summer (she's afraid, since I'm already 19 years old, that it might be my last).  I told them I loved being on the boat (I purred a lot during that week), so they decided I could join them on their cruise this year.  It's going to be a pretty short one, since we all got a late start (they had a bunch of guys working on their house in June, then a friend's funeral, and a bunch of other stuff that delayed them).  We just left Charlevoix yesterday (July 20), but so far, we're having lots of fun!  I'll let Carol tell you about our sail.

We left Charlevoix at the 1:30 bridge opening. 

Forecast was for not much wind, but with a northerly component, so we decided to head for Northport, on the NW tip of Grand Traverse Bay, about a four-hour trip from Charlevoix across the top of the bay (hence, our own "traverse").  Wind came up about 2:30 p.m., just after we'd finished lunch in the cockpit, 

so we put up sail.  Wind increased and became more westerly as the afternoon wore on, so we moved along between 4 and 6 knots most of the way.  

As we approached the buoy marking our turn due west into Northport Bay, the winds were blowing 18-20 and dark clouds were forming on the horizon.  So we took in sail and motored the last half hour.  Gretel doesn't seem to mind the motion.  She has a few favorite spots in the cabin where she feels most comfortable, so she just hangs out there.  Once we were tied up in harbor, she even came up the stairs into the cockpit to have a look around, a first!  We weren't sure her arthritic back legs were able to make that climb.  When we brought her out in the past, she made a big fuss about not being able to get back down.  Not yesterday.  She keeps amazing us.

We plan to leave here tomorrow morning and sail to Traverse City, as our motto this year is to go wherever the wind blows us.  The forecast is for north winds, and TC is about 30 miles south of here, so it should be a nice blow downwind.  And tomorrow is one of the first days there's no rain in the forecast!